The Marshal's Witness

by Intrigue Romance

  Someone shouted, but the words were snatched away by the wind. Jessica whirled toward the sound. Ryan Jackson stood in the open courthouse doorway. He dropped his briefcase and sprinted toward her, his arms and legs pumping like an Olympic runner. He might have shouted her name, but she wasn’t sure.

  William cursed and grabbed her shoulders. Another shout, a metallic click, an explosion of light and sound. A wall of searing heat slammed into Jessica. She tumbled through the air, her screams mingling with the screams of others as the concrete rushed up to meet her. A sickening thud, burning, tearing agony, then...nothing.

  Chapter Two

  Smooth, soft sheets surrounded Jessica. But the fluffy pillow beneath her head did nothing to relieve the searing, throbbing pain that shot through her body. She tried to open her eyes, but her lids were too heavy, the pain too intense. The smell of antiseptic wafted through the air. A high-pitched beep sounded from far away.

  Pain jackknifed through her head. She cried out, squeezing her eyes against the harsh light filtering through her lids. She tried to raise her hands to block out the light, but someone grabbed her arms, forcing them down.

  “Let me go,” she cried, but her dry throat made coherent speech impossible. The words sounded garbled even to her own ears.

  “Hold her still before she hurts herself,” a man’s exasperated voice ordered.

  “I’m trying, Doctor,” said another male voice, inches from her face. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

  “She’s in pain.” A woman’s voice. “Can I give her the morphine now?”

  Morphine? Jessica relaxed slightly against the hands holding her. Yes, morphine. Please. Everything hurt, especially her head.

  “Not yet. I’m trying to wake her up, not put her back under.”

  Back under?

  “Ms. Adams, I’m Dr. Brooks. You’ve been in an accident. Can you open your eyes?”

  An accident? She gasped and cried out when the hands holding her down pressed on the upper part of her left arm.

  “Be careful, David. You’re pressing on her stitches.” Dr. Brooks. The man who wouldn’t give her morphine.

  A stab of hot, sharp pain shot through the left side of Jessica’s face. She moaned and tried to pull away from the rough, calloused hands holding her so tightly.

  “Give her some morphine.” The doctor, sounding impatient. “One-third the usual dose, just enough to calm her down.”

  “It’s okay,” a feminine voice whispered to Jessica. Soothing, gentle hands brushed against her. A low beep sounded. Moments later the pain dulled to a bearable ache and the urge to sleep flooded her veins. She fought its tempting pull and opened her eyes, blinking against the bright fluorescent lights.

  A young man in lime-green scrubs was leaning over her bed, his hands clamping her wrists down.

  “Release her, David,” the voice she recognized as Dr. Brooks ordered.

  The man in green let go of her arms and she pulled them against her chest. She turned her head on the pillow to put a face to the voice she’d heard. An unsmiling man stood on her right side. Instead of the white smock she’d expected, he wore an immaculate dark blue suit, his short, blond hair lightly curling around his face.

  “Miss Adams, do you know where you are?” he asked.

  She looked at the bed’s metal railing, the IV pump, the stethoscope draped around the doctor’s collar. “Hos...hospital,” she rasped.

  “That’s right. Cohen Children’s Medical Center.”

  Children’s? That didn’t make sense. Wait...wasn’t that in Long Island? She was in Louisiana, wasn’t she? She tried to speak again but her throat was too dry, too tight.

  The doctor motioned to the older woman standing beside him, dressed in a Daisy Duck smock. “Get her some ice chips.”

  The woman left the room. The man in green adjusted the IV drip. When the woman returned, she held a yellow paper cup to Jessica’s lips.

  “Let these melt in your mouth, sweetie. I bet your throat’s as dry as dust about now.”

  Jessica gratefully accepted the cool ice chips, instantly liking the short, rotund woman whose voice she recognized as the lady who’d wanted to give her morphine.

  When her throat lost some of its dry, scratchy feel, she offered the nurse a weak smile. “Thank you.”

  The nurse patted her hand and motioned to the man the doctor had called David. They both left the room.

  The doctor flashed a light in her eyes and listened to her heart. “Do you remember the explosion?”

  Explosion? Oh, no. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut as horrific images assaulted her. The boom she’d thought was thunder, so loud her eardrums ached. The blast of heat. Burning, tearing pain as something ripped into her flesh. A sickening crack. A moment of intense agony when something hit her head with the force of a battering ram.

  She gasped and opened her eyes. “I remember.”

  “Excellent.” He didn’t seem to notice her distress. “The headache you’re experiencing is from a cracked skull. That was your most serious injury, but you’ve got enough stitches in you to sew a patchwork quilt. Minor burns, scrapes. You had a collapsed lung when you were taken to the ER. Your face—”

  She tried to focus on his words, but in her mind’s eye she saw Ryan Jackson back at the courthouse, running toward her, shouting her name. Why? What had he seen?

  “—multiple contusions,” the doctor continued. “I’ve kept you heavily sedated to control the swelling in your brain, but you’re past the danger point now. I expect you’ll make a complete recovery.”

  She twisted her fingers in the sheets, noticing for the first time that they were pink, covered with cartoon fairies and flowers. The walls were painted in soothing pastels. “Where am I?”

  He sighed impatiently. “Cohen Children’s Medical Center,” he repeated, “in Long Island. Apparently some very bad people are after you. Your bodyguard transferred you here once you were stable. He seems to think that no one will look for you in a place like this.”

  “Long Island? Bodyguard?”

  The doctor looked past her toward the other side of the room. “You have five minutes.” With his crisp order lingering in the air, he strode out the doorway.

  Bewildered by the doctor’s abrupt departure, Jessica turned her head and met the icy stare of Marshal Ryan Jackson, sitting in a chair across the room.

  Something about that look filled her with dread.

  She recoiled against the sheets before she could stop herself. The mocking look on his face told her he’d noticed her reaction.

  “You’re as pleased to see me as I am to see you.” His harsh voice raked across her nerve endings, making her head pound harder. He slowly unfolded his long, muscular body from the chair and crossed the short space to stand by her bed.

  She could feel the heat from him, smell the light, clean scent of his soap. In another lifetime he would have been appealing. But her attraction to him was eclipsed by the anger rolling off him in waves.

  She fought the urge to squirm farther away and concentrated on asking what she desperately needed to know. “What happened? The other marshals, how badly were they hurt?”

  His lips flattened. “All dead. The only reason you’re alive is because you didn’t get into that van, and because Marshal Gavin shielded you with his body.”

  She covered her mouth, swallowing hard against the bile rising in her throat. She’d spent nearly every waking minute with those marshals for twelve months. She knew what foods they liked, what shows they watched, what made them laugh or curse.

  Her heart twisted painfully in her chest and she shook her head in denial. She immediately stilled when the throbbing in her head worsened. “What happened?” she whispered, gritting her teeth against the pain.

  “Someone, presumably one of DeGaullo’s men, blew up the van using a damn toy, a remote-control car. I saw the car a few seconds before the blast.” His jaw tightened. “My warning came too late. Except for you. Ironic, isn’t it?
A woman who dedicated her life to cooking the books for the mob survives, while four decent, honorable men die.”

  She jerked back from the raw fury and accusation in his voice. The sudden movement caused a wave of nausea. She sucked in a deep breath and bit back the sharp retort hovering on her tongue. Ryan Jackson didn’t know her, or why she’d made the choices she’d made. He’d just seen his colleagues die, and he obviously blamed her, at least partially. She could understand that. She’d probably feel the same way.

  “When are the funerals?” She struggled for a calmness she was far from feeling. “I want to go.”

  “You can’t go to their funerals.” He spoke in short, clipped tones.

  Anger flared inside her, overriding her sympathy for him, overriding her horror over what had happened. “I don’t care what you think of me, but I have to go to their funerals. I owe them that.”

  He reached toward her arm. Before she could move away, he gently lifted her wrist and unwound the IV tubing that had become tangled around one of her bandages.

  “Whether I would have allowed you to go to their funerals is a moot point. In spite of your miraculous survival, you didn’t come away unscathed in the blast. You’ve already been here for quite some time, and the doctor said you’ll be here several more weeks, maybe longer. The funerals were held a few days after the explosion.”

  She clasped her hands on the railing beside her, hatred for DeGaullo filling her like a living thing. He’d hurt so many people, including the one person she’d opened up to about her past—Natalie—and now he’d stolen her right to pay her respects to the men who’d died protecting her. “How long has it been since the explosion?”

  He pulled up her covers and arranged the call button so she could easily reach it. He tugged at the wrinkles in her blanket, smoothing them out.

  She frowned at his actions. It dawned on her, from the faraway look in his eyes, and the way his expression had softened, that he probably didn’t realize what he was doing. His movements seemed automatic, like he was operating on autopilot.

  The lines around his eyes were deeper than before. He looked tired, almost haggard. Silver threads shone in his dark hair, as if he’d aged several years since she’d met him at the courthouse.

  His hands stilled. He straightened, his eyes frosting over, his cold mask back in place. “Two weeks. The funerals were two weeks ago.”

  He yanked his hand back and crossed to the window. A moment later, he squared his shoulders and turned around to face her. “I’m the lead field agent on your case now. When you leave here, I’ll take you to a new location, settle you into another new identity.”

  Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him. She shook her head in denial, no longer caring that it made the pain worse. “No. I won’t agree to that. You’re too angry. You obviously blame me for what happened. I’ll tell the Justice Department that I won’t—”

  “You think I want to be assigned to this case?” His jaw went rigid as he stepped back to her side. “You’re not an innocent bystander who happened to witness a crime. You chose to cover up your boss’s crimes for five years. The only reason you went to the Feds was because DeGaullo killed your friend, and you knew you were next. As far as I’m concerned, you’re almost as bad as he is.”

  Her body flushed hot beneath his scalding words.

  “But,” he continued, before she could speak, “since I’m a former army ranger, and people are trying to kill you, the government has decided I’m their most qualified marshal to keep you alive. Against my wishes, they’ve assigned me as your temporary guardian.”

  His eyes flashed as he held her gaze. “Four men gave their lives for you. I’m not going to allow their sacrifices to be meaningless. When I became a marshal, I made a vow that I’m honor bound to keep. I will keep you safe, whatever it takes, whether you want me to or not.”

  * * *

  RYAN FIRMLY SHUT the door to Jessica’s hospital room and slumped back against the wall in the hallway. He scrubbed his hands across his face and rubbed his tired eyes. For two weeks he’d sat in that uncomfortable plastic chair in the corner of Jessica’s room, watching over her. He’d slept in the cramped window seat, listening to the machines hooked up to her beeping along with her vital signs, calling the nurses when she cried out in pain. He’d held her hand when she twisted against the sheets in the throes of a nightmare.

  And the minute she woke up, he’d been a complete jerk, blaming her for his friends’ deaths. Did he blame her? Yes, partly, but that didn’t excuse his actions. His mother would be appalled if she’d seen her son treat a woman that way, any woman, regardless of what she’d done.

  Especially since the reason he’d behaved that way had nothing to do with the explosion, and everything to do with the way she affected him. When he’d looked into her soft brown eyes and that shock of attraction rippled through him, just like when he’d first met her, he’d been so disgusted at himself that he’d lashed out. How could he want her so much, knowing about her past, the choices she’d made that went against everything he believed in?

  Physically, she was exactly his type—petite and curvy. Even with her stitches and bandages, she made his blood run hot. He could understand that. She was a beautiful woman, and he was still young enough to appreciate that. What he couldn’t understand was why her appeal went far beyond her outward appearance.

  When he looked in her eyes he saw the pain she didn’t acknowledge, the kind of pain that went far deeper than cuts and bruises. He knew what caused that pain in him—the lives he’d taken while performing his duties, the betrayal by someone he’d trusted, the men under his command who’d lost their lives as a result of that betrayal.

  But why was she suffering? What had happened to put those shadows in her eyes?

  And why did he care?

  He rubbed his neck to work out the stiffness. He didn’t know what it was about Jessica Delaney that drove him so crazy. All he knew for sure was that he needed to put some distance between the two of them. The only way to do that was to finalize her new identity and get her new location set up.

  He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and texted the message that would set everything into motion...Sleeping Beauty is awake.

  Chapter Three

  In the three weeks since she’d awakened in the hospital to find Ryan Jackson in her room, Jessica had learned a few things. One was that he had a bit of the devil in him. So, as she stood beside him on the front lawn that had already turned brown in the cool fall air, she did everything she could to hide her disappointment. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d won this round, because the house he’d brought her to was the ugliest she’d ever seen.

  And it was hers.

  She glanced over at the three marshals leaning against the SUV in the gravel driveway. Judging by the looks on their faces, they agreed with her.

  The house boasted rotting wood siding in a sickly mustard-yellow with patches of gray, as if someone had thought about changing the color but had changed their mind. The shutters on the two narrow front windows were missing half their slats. Weeds grew wild and tall, choking what once must have been a concrete walkway that led to the sagging porch.

  “I suppose you would have rather gone to New Orleans.” Ryan studied the dilapidated cabin in front of them as if weighing its merits. “Probably more appealing to a city girl like you.”

  Jessica pursed her lips, determined not to let his latest city girl comment goad her. He flung the mantra around as if it were the worst insult he could think of. It made her want to ask him why he didn’t consider himself a city boy since he lived in New York, but that would require an actual conversation, and he wasn’t open to that—not about anything personal, anyway.

  Her shoulders slumped. He was right. Living in the gator-filled bayous of Louisiana would have been infinitely preferable to living in rural Tennessee.

  Emphasis on rural.

  He’d scrapped the origin
al location, reasoning that her notoriety after the bombing would put her at risk in a big city. She was more inclined to believe he just wanted to punish her, especially since her new last name so clearly demonstrated his opinion of her.

  Benedict.

  As in Benedict Arnold.

  “You’ll have plenty of privacy on this dead-end road.” He sounded like a Realtor trying to convince his client a house was cozy instead of cramped.

  She glanced over at the only other house close enough to see, a cabin next to hers with about thirty feet separating the two. Its yard was well kept. Its porch had a collection of bleached-white rocking chairs and terra-cotta pots with purple cold-weather flowers spilling over the edge.

  In the twenty-minute ride up the mountain, bumping and jarring over every pothole and rock on the gravel road, Jessica had only seen a handful of other houses. What were the odds that whoever lived next door would be her age, someone with the same likes and dislikes, someone she could be friends with? Knowing that Ryan had helped his boss choose this location for her, she figured the odds were just about zero. Ryan wouldn’t want to reward the woman he held responsible for his friends’ deaths.

  “Who lives in the cabin next door?” she asked, bracing herself for the worst.

  “Me.”

  “What?” Her mouth dropped open in shock. When she’d braced herself for the worst, having Ryan living next door wasn’t even on the list of possibilities.

  He opened the neon blue front door and rolled her suitcase inside. “For the next few weeks, I’ll be your neighbor. Just until you’re settled in.”

  “Oh, sugar.”

  The corner of Ryan’s mouth lifted into a grin. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.” Jessica wasn’t about to admit that she’d grown up swearing worse than most boys, and that her last foster mom had gone on a personal crusade to clean up Jessica’s language. She’d made Jessica say sugar instead of cussing, a habit that had become so ingrained, it had stuck with her. Ryan would jump all over that and tease her mercilessly.